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Life by Design is a podcast that shares the experiences and tools to help couples align their wealth goals and reclaim their time, enabling them to experience freedom, abundance, and a life by design.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:09] Welcome to the Life by Design podcast with your hosts, Jessilyn and Brian Persson. We support couples in achieving their wealth goals by sharing our journey of overcoming barriers to build our financial empire.
Brian Persson: [00:00:20] With our extensive personal experience and increasing demand for couples seeking alignment to invest confidently in real estate, we created the Riches, Relationships and Real Estate program to help you achieve your goals.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:32] Today's topic is the number one way to destroy your wealth. In our podcast we talk a lot about how to create wealth, but we never talked about how to preserve wealth. So in this episode, we're going to discuss the number one way you can destroy your wealth.
Brian Persson: [00:00:47] Mhm. And the number one way to destroy your wealth is divorce. And interestingly enough, the number one reason for divorce is disagreements over money. So I'm going to start right in with a story that came from a real estate conference that we went to, and we met a billionaire there, he was one of the speakers, and he got divorced. And his number one piece of advice was choose your partners wisely, because half of a billion is not a billion.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:16] That's right.
Brian Persson: [00:01:17] Yeah. So divorce effectively leaves you with an absolute maximum of half of what you had. And it's probably going to leave you with less. So.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:27] Correct. So if you're a millionaire and you get divorced, you are no longer a millionaire.
Brian Persson: [00:01:32] Mhm. And I looked up some statistics from StatCan and StatCan indicates that your income, most divorcees their income drops by up to 30% after divorce. So a very, very substantial hit to your bottom line. And couples, interestingly, they also showed that couples that are wealthy and have money have significantly lower divorce rates. So money, whether you like it or not, plays a huge part in your relationship and literally can make your relationship a happy relationship or an unhappy relationship. Mhm. Interestingly, StatCan also talks about how you can be too poor to divorce and you really just can't have the money to separate from a potentially not good situation. So money is very, very important for you in the health of your relationship. And it's very important for you to build your wealth inside of that.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:02:29] So with your future hinging on a strong functioning relationship, can you afford not to be wealthy?
Brian Persson: [00:02:37] Exactly, yeah. Can you afford not to be wealthy? Interesting. Interesting thing to think about.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:02:42] Yeah. So we'll roll into our first takeaway which is start the conversation.
Brian Persson: [00:02:47] Mhm. Every relationship and every way to build wealth always starts with a conversation. And if you can't start that conversation, then you're already in rocky waters right from the start.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:03:01] Yeah. We've had, we talk about this in many of our podcasts, but communication. Communication is key to everything you want. So if your wealth isn't where you want it to be, or you have ideas on how you want to build your wealth bigger than what it is, you need to have that conversation with your partner. And as we've mentioned in another podcast, if your partner isn't maybe open to hearing that conversation at the time, then you need to find other methods to introduce your partner to that. So maybe that's friends who have done what you want to do, like real estate, for example, or getting your partner into a networking room where they can actually see the potential of what you're looking at, but maybe from a different view.
Brian Persson: [00:03:45] Mhm. Yeah. And I mean it goes for them not even being interested at all. And we see that in a lot of relationships where generally, very generally, the man is the one who is trying to generate the wealth and the woman is largely uninvolved and uninterested in generating the wealth. And from an outside perspective, looking into that relationship, you can see how the relationship is just not performing as well as it should, and their wealth is not performing as well as it should. And that's primarily because there's only one person working towards that goal, and no conversations are being had inside of that conversation, inside of that relationship.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:04:26] Yeah. And I've heard many stories, you know, of, you're right, women not really part of the conversation. And I think part of it is they just, they rely or they depend on their husband to take care of it. And so they just think it's taken care of. But unfortunately for those who end up either losing their partner, whether it be death or divorce, then they're stuck scrambling because they have no idea what's going on. They don't know how to manage it. They might not even know where to find it. So I always encourage, I mean everyone in general, but women especially get to know your finances, what you have, where it is, where your partner wants to take it. I mean, if you are uncomfortable because maybe you can't speak the language and you don't feel like you're educated in it, then reach out. There's tons of free resources online to help get yourself educated on different ways, wealth and wealth building and what that could look like. And make sure you're protected for yourself for whatever future could happen. But also your partner will thank you. Your partner wants you to be involved, and we've learned that through the rooms we've been in that they really wish they could have the conversation with their partner about what they're doing in real estate, or how they're investing and what that looks like, because they're excited and they want to share that excitement.
Brian Persson: [00:05:39] And vice versa. The partner who isn't involved, can often feel threatened, can often feel fairly scared to start having those conversations. I know myself, if I feel like I'm ignorant or I don't know what I'm supposed to be talking about, I'll avoid the conversation until I can kind of get my head around it and learn it. But if you're not interested in it, you'll never get your head around it and never learn it. And then you'll always be scared to have that wealth conversation, to have that money conversation with your partner.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:06:10] Oh yeah, I remember years ago we'd have conversations and you'd use words that I would I'd have no clue what they meant, but I would pretend I did and be like, yeah, um hum, okay, and then either I would just forget it or later I'd go Google it so I knew what it was. But I learned that just didn't work. So now straight out, when you say something, I'll just like kind of stop you in your shoes and be like, what is that? And I'll get you to explain it to me. So then I'm actually active in the conversation.
Brian Persson: [00:06:39] But I mean, if you fake it till you make it and that's your strategy to get past the, get over that hump and the other side of the hill, then, hey, go for it.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:06:48] Yeah, yeah. Whatever's going to work
Brian Persson: [00:06:50] It's a valid strategy. Just do it. Yeah. So starting that conversation is really the hardest part. And there's a saying it's choose your hard. And you can either start that conversation and work through those uncomfortable initial conversations, especially the first few conversations, or you can just kind of let it slide and then you're going to have a hard time later on potentially getting divorced or not being as wealthy as you want. So pick, you can choose hard now, or you can choose hard later. But one way or another, that hard is going to come and it's going to find you and it's going to make your life difficult. So better to do it on your terms.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:07:27] Yep. And let your partner have their opinion. So when you're going to have these conversations, find the common ground not the division I understand, we understand we might have different thoughts on wealth, on investing, on ideas. And that's okay. We share them with each other. But it's not a me against you. It's me and you to build this wealth. And if you can find that common ground with your partner, I think you'll both be elevated and you'll feel a lot more open to the discussion. And welcome to the conversation. And a lot more like you're being engaged and heard on whatever path it is you choose to go forward with.
Brian Persson: [00:08:06] Mhm. It's a difference between understanding what they're saying and not liking what they're saying. And sometimes it can get confused in your head and you might not like what they are saying because it sounds scary and you're, you know, it's a risky proposition or whatever your partner is suggesting. And so immediately you're just defensive about it.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:08:29] Yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:08:29] And you start to get your back up. But if you can allow your partner to have that space to explain themselves, and you can truly put in some effort to understand what they're really talking about and get through to the other side of that understanding so that it doesn't look so scary anymore, I think you'll have a totally different conversation.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:08:48] Absolutely. Yeah. The key is listening to what they have to say and holding no judgment. Right? Just being an open platform to hear what they have to say. Again, you may not like it and you may not necessarily agree with it, but if there's things you don't like about it, don't hold those in either. Like just ask your partner to explain his or her thoughts on what you're thinking when it comes to this. Like, say you heard something and you're like, well, this is what I heard. Maybe your partner is aware and can explain it, or maybe your partner isn't aware and so now you just bring in that up, opens up the conversation to explore further into what your partner's speaking to, and maybe helping resolve your fears, or showing a red flag for why this isn't a good fit for you and your partner at that time.
Brian Persson: [00:09:36] Really good skill to have in the conversation, what you just mentioned there, is just reflecting what your partner said. Sometimes, you know, we're all Superman in our own heads, and we're these miracle workers and we really just don't hear what we say sometimes. And we think we have, like, this brilliant plan of wealth. And when it's coming out of our mouth, it's not really received by the other person that's hearing it properly. It's perfectly crystal clear in your head, and it seems like this wondrous plan, but it's not understood and it's not clear for the other person. So if you're that person who is not understanding what your partner is saying, sometimes just say the exact same thing back to them, like with a question mark at the end, and they will have to reprocess what they just said, and all of a sudden they might realize that they are not getting clear to you, and they'll reformat what they're saying and say it again in a way that's more understandable to you.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:10:34] Yeah. And if not that option, then definitely ask how and what questions instead of why. So if your partner offers a suggestion that you're not sure of, ask them how do you see that unfolding? Or how does you see that working for us? Or what does that look like for our future? Instead of why do you think that? Because that comes across very accusatory, right?
Brian Persson: [00:10:57] Yeah. That's a thing that we teach a lot, because just swapping out those two words can change the whole direction of a conversation and make it in, make it go from a battle zone to like an actual constructive conversation.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:11:12] Yeah, it helps expand the conversation as opposed to shrinking it and making someone want to just kind of end it and move on to something else.
Brian Persson: [00:11:19] Yeah, Yeah. No one wants to be accused, that's for sure.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:11:22] No. Rolling into takeaway number two, define what wealth means to you, your partner, and each other.
Brian Persson: [00:11:29] Mhm. Big, big conversation here. Because as we were just talking about, some partners just aren't involved in wealth. They, they might not even have a concept of what wealth really, really means to them. And so there's a little bit of learning that will have to happen with this conversation. But there's a lot of conversation in itself to happen because, you know, it's a big, big scope. It's not just like how much money is in my bank account. It is, you know, how much freedom do we have for our life? How many vacations do we want to go on? What kind of house, what kind of like, you know, ideal day do we want to set up for ourselves.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:12:13] Of choice of whether you want to work or not. Right? And you say freedom. And we relate a lot more to time freedom to have the capacity to maybe take your kids to their sports or certain school events or whatever it is, how you want to design your day. That has a lot to do with money and wealth.
Brian Persson: [00:12:34] Yeah, controlling our day is a huge part of wealth for us. So the ability to work when we want, where we want, sort of how we want is massive. And we've structured our contracts and our business and everything around that so that, so that we can be very effective in what we do, but also drive the kids to school and drive the kids to their sports and not have to say no to the kids and say, you can't go to parkour tonight because like, Mummy and Daddy are going to be home late from work or something like that.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:13:09] Yeah. Yep. Another step when defining your wealth is to run the numbers. And so what income do you need to feel wealthy for your family?
Brian Persson: [00:13:19] Mhm. A good place to start is two times your current income. So whatever that household income is, just two x it, and then start working back from there to try and figure out what kind of savings, what kind of real estate, what kind of portfolio you need to achieve that number.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:13:41] Yeah, absolutely. And when you're having that discussion about defining your wealth, look at what wealth-creation methods are you comfortable with. What's your sleep at night factor.
Brian Persson: [00:13:50] Yeah, this is a thing we talk about a lot.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:13:52] Yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:13:53] Because not everybody is designed for real estate. In fact, most everybody is not designed for real estate.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:14:00] Many are not. And to be clear, when we say real estate, we're talking like the brick and mortar, you got the tenants type. Because there's other type of real estate investments--
Brian Persson: [00:14:09] -- there's many types, yeah--
Jessilyn Persson: [00:14:10] -- of course, that are perfect for sleep at night factor. But it's less hands-on. So which means less stress to you as an investor.
Brian Persson: [00:14:19] And when I, yeah, so when I say real estate it's the real estate that's closest to you. So you own the property. Perhaps you're hiring the property management or perhaps you are the property management. I would say that the old 80/20 rule applies there, and probably about 20% of the people who think that they should be real estate investors are really the only people who should be real estate investors. The other 80% should find other methods to invest in real estate. And like you were saying, there's REITs, there's stocks that you can buy to invest in real estate in many, many different ways. You can find a partner, like us, to buy properties with. And we will do all the management. And then you can sleep at night knowing that you're not going to get a call from a tenant, knowing that your property manager is not going to come to you and say, hey, by the way, like we only collected 50% of the rent this month, and all those different fun issues that you have when you are much, much closer to the real estate and much more hands-on.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:15:21] Yeah, absolutely. And gonna flip back there to running the numbers there. I know you say if you don't know what you need to feel wealthy, start at two times your current household income. And we always encourage couples when we're working with them to create a budget. You know, what do you have income now? What do you have outgoing now? And look at that as a budget, and that's now. But then also create a future budget. So that future budget is includes what you would like to have. And it may not be all the billionaire status glory yet because it's going to take steps to get there. But you build that next one and you keep building your budgets as you grow and you grow. But make sure you're including your next budget, an extra few steps of wealth, whatever that looks like for you, for your household, for us, for example, quite a few years ago now, it started with getting a house cleaner just to help offset some of the work in our house. And I know that wasn't, I would say, maybe the easiest decision. So we started, I just got a house cleaner in once just to show you what it looked like. And then you're like, oh wow, that really does help. And we started having her once every three weeks and then here we are, I don't even know, 4 or 5 years, maybe more, later, and we have her once a week. But we didn't start there. We started with just a one-time shot to see the advantages of it, right, and how much time it saved us to work on our other projects or be with our kids. Right?
Brian Persson: [00:16:42] Right.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:16:42] And so that's just a small step. But it was a step to helping us be more time free.
Brian Persson: [00:16:49] Yeah, yeah, yeah, our house cleaner reminds me of it all the time, actually. And exactly when she came in and how old Jackson was when she started. So, yeah, she consistently puts it in my face in how much time she's saving for me.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:17:07] Excellent. I did not set that up at all.
Brian Persson: [00:17:08] No, no. But I wanted to go a little deeper into the two x number, uh, because there's different levels of financial freedom and like the first level of financial freedom is that you can pay your bills. And that is you have a job, hopefully it's stable, you can pay your bills. That's kind of level number one. Level number two is where you have enough savings that, you know, disaster and things can happen and you're largely not affected from it. The next level up is where your passive income really takes care of all your expenses, so you have no need to work. But there's a couple levels beyond that where the two x number comes into, and that is where you can really start to do whatever you want in your life. And the reason I like to use two x and not like a one x or lower, is because you have it already, generally. You have a job, you can already afford that, and so what are you really shooting for? You're not, there's no goal there to really achieve. So you got to have something a little bit in the horizon to aim for in order to get to that two x number. And then when you get there, guess what? There's probably a five x or a ten x. So there's always going to be something beyond that. But for most people's current situations, two X is a fantastic place to shoot for.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:18:37] Yeah, and it's not overwhelming. So if we went straight to ten x, like to even grasp how to make that difference in your income can be so overwhelming that you just shut down. So two x is accessible, right? That you can figure out ways of making more income, a side hustle, investments, real estate, whatever it's going to look like to start building more income that you know is achievable and it's not going to just make you want to just kind of crawl in a corner and wonder like how you're supposed to do this.
Brian Persson: [00:19:09] Well, just like the conversations that we were talking about, if you don't understand it, you're going to be scared of it. And I would assert that most people do not understand a ten x goal because how do you understand, say you're at a 5 to 10 grand per month range, and now you are at a 52 hundred grand per month range, it sounds absolutely wonderful. But when you're, you know, your yearly income is, you know, on average about 100 grand or more, how do you grasp your head around the 100 grand range per month? It's not even going to make sense to you. And so you're just going to back away from that goal and you're not even going to start stepping forward with it. So the idea here is like get your first step out, get your second step out, and then eventually get to that point where you're into the two x, five x, ten x range, and you're really moving forward.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:20:04] Yeah, absolutely. Build it brick by brick. All right. Takeaway number three, design a path to get to wealth. And as we allude to all the time, get support. Tell your family and your friends your goals, find a coach, network and meet people who have done it, what you want to do so you can learn from them, and they'll help motivate and support you.
Brian Persson: [00:20:26] Networking is huge. If you're an introvert, get out there anyway.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:20:30] Yeah. Pretty much.
Brian Persson: [00:20:31] Yeah. Be the shy guy in the room, it doesn't really matter. That was me years ago, and I just pushed through it. And again, choose your hard, right? Like, do I want to sit there scared in my house? Or do I want to sit there scared in a room that's going to make me wealthy? And I chose, you know, to go into the room and, you know, for the first few meetings, maybe have a little bit of sweaty paws.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:20:54] Palms?
Brian Persson: [00:20:55] Paws, palms. And it's funny because now I meet people who are exactly like me, you know, what, probably ten years ago. And I'm super sympathetic and very encouraging of those types of people. And you will meet a lot of people like me in those rooms where they don't care where you started from or where you are or how scared you are about your goals. They want to help you. And I find rooms of real estate investors to be the friendliest, most social and helpful people on the planet.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:21:30] Yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:21:31] They're just great people who want to share and want to, like, make sure everybody's winning.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:21:37] 100%. Another step to design a path to get your wealth is to create a strategy to outline your path, including your short and your long-term goals.
Brian Persson: [00:21:46] This is what I was talking about with the whole one x, two x, and five x. If you don't have a path which is tangible to you today and is just going to stretch you far enough that you can actually achieve it, then you're just not going to start going down that path. Take weightlifting, for example. If you were capable of lifting, say, 10 pounds in an arm and you want to get to 100 pounds per arm, and you just start at 100 pounds, but you're literally incapable of lifting the 100 pounds, it's just not going to happen. It's not ever, ever going to happen. So this is where goals are really, really important, that you set the short-term goals so that you can get clean, easy, early wins and then the long-term goals, which is going to stack those short-term goals up and eventually get to your 100 pounds per arm kind of weight.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:22:45] Yeah, build that muscle every day. So for example, if your long-term goal is to two x your income, that could be a year or two-year goal. But then in there you want your short-term goals. Like for example, start with building your budget so you know exactly where you sit, what are your expenses, what's your income? And maybe start doing some research on how else you could start making a secondary income. I mean, those are very small, easy to bite off, short-term goals to get you to your bigger goal of two X in your income and then just keep growing.
Brian Persson: [00:23:18] Yeah. Networking, finding people who did it as we just talked about. If you can find people who have already achieved the goals that you're looking to achieve, then you have a blueprint for doing exactly what you want to do. You don't have to go and recreate any wheels. You don't have to, you know, be the most creative person on the planet to try and figure it out. You already have someone who can, in a few short coffee sessions, can tell you exactly what to do.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:23:46] Yeah. And if you're scared, do it anyway.
Brian Persson: [00:23:50] Yeah. Like I was saying about the networking rooms. Nowadays, you know, I'm totally comfortable in a networking room. In fact, I'll network with 50 people inside of two hours, easy. And not break a sweat doing it. But if you had talked to me ten years ago, as I was mentioning, you know, I would be the guy who was like, hoping that someone would come and talk to me and like, or just, like, force myself into a conversation really awkwardly. And you know what? That's okay. Because it still got us and me as a person where I needed to go. So.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:24:29] Yeah, I mean literally what's the worst case, right? I mean, I know back - this was quite a few years ago - when I wanted to ask for a raise. I remember being so stressed I thought, I stewed on it for a week, just terrified to ask my boss for that raise. And then I was like, that's it, I'm going to do it, I'm not going to have a stressful weekend, I'm going to get her done. And I remember going up the stairs to the fifth floor and I paced the hallway for, I don't know how long, just terrified to go into his office. And then I finally did because I was like, Jess, you're doing this, you're doing this. Like, trust me, it's harder to have to sit on this than it is to just get her done, right? What's the worst that's going to happen? Sure enough I go in and I ask and he's like, yeah, I've been thinking about that for a while, you deserve it. I'm like, in my head I'm like, oh my God, how much stress did I put on myself over a course of a week or a month for this?
Brian Persson: [00:25:20] Yeah, yeah.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:25:20] It's not worth it. Just do it. The jump is much easier because on the end, it's generally a lot more rewarding and less scary than we psych ourselves up to think it is.
Brian Persson: [00:25:30] It is, yeah. And having an accountability partner to do those kind of things, because I was your accountability partner in that time. And I would say that it was much more than a week that you were stewing.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:25:40] Probably.
Brian Persson: [00:25:42] It was perhaps on the order of months. But yeah, like I remember a lot of different breakfasts and perhaps a few suppers in there where you were just waffling over it and trying to churn over all the reasons why and why not that you should get a raise. And I'm sitting there as an impartial outside observer, just kind of watching how you work and watching how other professionals in your field treat you. And I'm like, duh, like you're as good as them. Why would you not get paid more, right? Like you should get paid at least as much as them, if not more, because you're outperforming them.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:26:14] Yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:26:14] But you, being inside your own head, couldn't see that. Right? So having an accountability partner to both reflect what you need and also keep you accountable. Accountability is massive. And if you can find the right accountability partner, you can do a lot more than you could without an accountability partner. I like to say, you know, in accountability it's usually just a phone call like, hey, when you're done this, call me. And most people will be absolutely terrified to not call that person and say that they've done it at the particular set time. And otherwise, if they have no one to call and say, hey, I actually finished this task and it was before Friday or whatever the deadline was, they just won't do it. You know, Friday goes by, no one's watching me. I'm hiding out.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:27:11] No big deal.
Brian Persson: [00:27:12] Yeah. No big deal.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:27:13] Yeah, absolutely. So to recap our takeaways. First, start the conversation. Number two, define what wealth means to you, your partner, and each other. And number three, design a path to get to wealth. Our next topic is going to be on setting goals for success.
Brian Persson: [00:27:31] We release podcasts every two weeks, so be sure to hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app to journey with us and create your life by design.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:27:41] Thanks for listening to the Life by Design podcast with your hosts, Brian and Jessilyn.